On the absorbing new EP Sailing Home, Galway native and Dublin-based songwriter Emma O’Reilly crafts folk-rooted songwriting through acoustic textures, natural imagery, and mystical lyrical sensibilities. Her first EP since 2016’s FRACTURES, the four-song release gathers material written between 2018 and 2021, drawing on folklore, astrology, tarot, and stream-of-consciousness writing while balancing intimate acoustic foundations with more experimental song forms.
Showcasing O’Reilly’s magnetic songwriting right away, EP opener “Only Love” resonates in its steady acoustic strums and emotive delivery. “Walk me to the bottom of the road, I do not want to go alone,” she sings, contextualizing herself as a “creature in a shell”—though proudly declaring, “I’m gonna make this thing my home.” The subsequent asking of “am I a ghost, wandering the fields?” furthers that sense of soul-searching and displacement, evoking a hollow or absent home. Touches of piano add to the spine-tingling mix, aesthetically conjuring a fond likeness to Elliott Smith. These chilly depictions are met by perseverance and a positive, concluding catharsis with stirring harmonies: “only love could thwart you, only love could support you.” It’s a masterful opening track.
The rest of the EP continues to enthrall. “River” is thematically consistent, referencing home with lines like “I will ride the river home,” paired with a drive to “leave my pain behind me” and a conquest to keep riding that river downstream to brighter waters and clearer skies. A lived-in wisdom emanates within the fluttering acoustic work, discarding feelings of anger, shame, and insecurity in favor of connection and self-love. “I’ve got my people, I’ve got people,” the track concludes, artfully moving from individual motivation to an embrace of togetherness and homely solace. Layered backing harmonies and a brassy resonance add power to the impactful production.
Next up, “Aedh” arrives with a dreamy, timeless appeal—consuming in its gorgeously ghostly choral layers, cathedral-like in its spacious presentation. Scribble-like sound effects linger underneath, with the “tread softly because you tread on my dreams” line stirringly akin to Marissa Nadler’s ethereal style. A gentler folk familiarity ushers in thereafter, while responsive melodic echoes beckon to “cover it up with kindness” in response to confusion, fear, and tumult. The title references a recurring figure in the poetry of W.B. Yeats, representing passion, soul, and romance, which is also reflected in the heartfelt lyrical imagery here.
Closing the EP, “Getting in the Way” poetically illustrates a state of personal fatigue, caught in a world “burning all the time” devoid of relief. It’s a poignant rumination in times when bad news seems to outweigh the good by a considerable margin. The art-pop swell into twinkles of piano and haunting backing harmonies makes for another resonant buildup, concluding an EP that absolutely compels through its affecting vocal performances, artful lyrical themes, and rewarding structural developments. Sailing Home is a thorough success of an EP from Emma O’Reilly.
